As Facebook battles to turn Beacon into a legitimate service, Mark Zuckerberg is in a battle of his own against the founders of ConnectU, who claim that Zuck’ stole the idea for Facebook from them, and that he owes them at least part of the $15 Billion the company is worth (on paper).
As part of the lawsuit, many of Zuckerberg’s personal papers have become public domain, including his Harvard Application, his online diary, Facebook’s statement of cash flows for 2005, and a letter that documents the damage Mark did to a sublet in 2004.
02138 has been kind enough to post these “Facebook Files”, along with a great piece on the whole story called “Poking Facebook” that delves into the history of the lawsuit, as well as the history of Mark himself.
It all plays out like a movie, and depending on the outcome of this whole thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if a film or two were made that recreates all this, so read up now for an advanced screening.
Poke.
[02138 - Poking Facebook]
[02138 - The Facebook Files]
As Facebook continues to grow, it continues to need new ways of making money from each of its users.
One of those ways is Project Beacon, where Facebook builds a page for an advertiser, and then links to it from various profile pages.
How does it create those links?
By monitoring what sites you visit, and then phoning home after you visit an advertiser’s site.
As expected, many users are not exactly excited about Facebook’s ability to watch everything they do, and are looking for ways to stop the Beacon.
Luckily, it’s as easy as using a JavaScript blocking plug-in in Firefox, and blocking the specific URL that Beacon uses.
The steps are as follows:
- Download and Install the BlockSite plugin for Firefox.
- After restarting Firefox select ‘Add-ons’ from the Tools menu.
- Click the ‘Options’ button on the BlockSite extension.
- Click the ‘Add’ button.
- Enter http://*facebook.com/beacon/* into the input box.
- Click ‘OK’.
- Click ‘OK’ again and you are good to go.
It’s good to know that there’s always someone looking out for the little guy.
[The Idea Shower - Block Facebook Beacon]
[Via: Mashable]
